Identity
by mille libri
Summary: What's in a name? Or a title? Commander Aaron Shepard is about to find out.
1. Aaron

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

 _The stars above him were going by in a blur. The Normandy was moving fast through space, fuel an insignificant expense as far as Cerberus was concerned. The Illusive Man wanted quick action, and Aaron Shepard was happy to provide._

 _But not tonight. Tonight he was glad to be sitting here on the couch in his quarters, feet in his old scuffed boots stretched out on the table in front of him, glass of fine Earth-made bourbon in hand, head tilted back, looking up at the stars._

 _It was almost like those meltingly hot summer nights in Tulsa when he was a kid, lying on the roof of the abandoned building he lived in with a score of other kids, outcasts and orphans just like him. They'd go up to the roof for any possible hint of coolness, a little breeze, any relief from the muggy Oklahoma summer, and they'd lie there and look up at the stars. They'd pretend that they were going to go there someday, but deep down, none of them really believed anyone actually lived up there, or flew amongst the stars in smooth, sleek ships. Just like none of them really believed they'd ever had parents, or a home of their own. Nearly all the group was made up of street kids who had little to no memory of being anything else._

 _Shepard took a swallow of the bourbon, holding it in his mouth and then letting it slide down his throat, burning as it went but carrying a glow of warmth after it. Why was he thinking about Tulsa tonight? He hadn't given any consideration to those long-ago days in years._

 _It must have been the krogan. What a burst of adrenaline that had been, facing down a newly-hatched krogan, full-grown and mindless with rage. He'd let himself be pushed up against the wall, but when it seemed the krogan wouldn't back off, Shepard had shot him through the stomach. He'd regenerated, of course, and with a hell of a lot more respect than he'd had before. Yes, Shepard thought the decision to awaken the krogan would turn out well in the long run. And then, to have it name itself Grunt … well, that was the irony, wasn't it? Because Shepard might as well have been tank-bred, and his first name had been Grunt—the only one he'd had for as long as he could remember._

They were all called Grunt, the little ones. Because Eno, the loud-mouthed older kid who led the gang, didn't want to bother learning their names, and because he was obsessed with old war vids from the 20th century. That was half the reason they had electricity in the building, thieving and scrapping and diving in dumpsters for credits or anything they could sell for credits in order to keep the lights on and the movies running. Eno said half the grunts died or disappeared anyway, so what was the point of them having names?

The little Grunt with the black hair and the always-serious face listened to Eno, and he watched the vids, and he believed everything he was told. He didn't know any better—he'd been in this gang for as long as he could remember. He was one of the lucky ones: fast enough to outrun the police officers who tried to pick them up, sharp-eyed enough to stay out of danger, and too intimidated by adults to get in cars with the smiling, pretty-smelling women and well-dressed jocular men who occasionally enticed others of the smaller children away. Eno said they did terrible things to the grunts they took, and little Grunt believed him. Some of the other older children said those fancy people took the little ones home and gave them soft beds and good meals … but few of the older children stayed for long. Eno was too jealous of his authority _(and, in retrospect, too soft to really put up a good fight)_ to allow any potential rivals to remain in the gang.

The next oldest right now was a girl named Rachel, who insisted on being called by her name. She was a sassy one, with red hair she wore in neat, careful braids. Unlike most of the others, Rachel had a parent still living—her father was a spacer, on a long-term assignment with the Alliance. She laughed at the others when they said it was a lie, and her father was really in jail. She believed he was coming back for her someday, and for that, the others laughed at her.

Little Grunt didn't laugh at her … then again, he never laughed at anything. The business of staying alive was too important to laugh. But he didn't believe her, either. Not until one day when she caught him loitering around outside the public library. It was a good place to go, because people so often came out distracted, staring at the screens in their hands, or the bound bundles of paper they carried, that they were easy to pickpocket.

"Hey. Grunt. What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Rachel. What's it look like I'm doing?"

She glared at him. "You can't steal from people at a library!"

He frowned. "Why not? Is it someone else's space?"

"No, because it's a library. Books, Grunt, they're important." She took one of the bound bundles out of the beaten-up satchel she carried and showed it to him, opening it up. He looked at the little black marks, marching in rows across the page, and shook his head. Rachel's eyes widened. They were pretty eyes, blue with flecks of green. "You can't read?"

He shook his head.

"Well … of course you can't. Here, come on." She led him toward the steps, but he hung back. The librarians had never let him in—probably they knew what he had come for. He looked like he had come to steal things, with his old dirty clothes, his unkempt, unwashed hair. Grunt could see the differences between himself and other people … but until now, he had never noticed the differences between himself and Rachel. She wore her hair braided, but he had thought that was to keep bugs out of it. Now he could see that her skin was clean, and she smelled good, and her clothes were old and threadbare, but they were clean, too. She swept into the library like she went there all the time. From the smile on the librarian's face, she must. And coming in under Rachel's protection meant that Grunt was allowed in, too. He filed that away for future reference—that and the awareness that being clean allowed you into places that otherwise would kick you out. Rachel said, "I'm going to show you something, but you have to stay very quiet until it's over, all right? Then we'll get something to eat."

That promise bought his obedience. Food was their currency, and he'd turned all his over to Eno last night. He sat in a chair while Rachel took a seat in front of a console and tapped on the keys. "I have an extranet account," she said to him over her shoulder. "So I can talk to my dad."

"If your dad is in space, why didn't he take you?" Grunt asked. He'd always wanted to know, but hadn't felt like it was okay to ask. Rachel was so self-assured, she made him feel shy. One of the few who could, really … or at least, one of the few who made him feel so shy he couldn't mask it under a pretense of confidence.

"He can't. No kids allowed on an Alliance vessel. And my mom didn't die until he was too far out on the mission to come back. He feels bad about it, but what can he do? He doesn't have any way to come home now."

"So he could be in jail, for all you know."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "You're too smart for that, Grunt." She frowned. "What is your real name, anyway?"

"Grunt."

"No, I mean, what your parents called you."

He shook his head uncomfortably. He couldn't remember parents, or a name other than the one he had.

Rachel looked at him, her eyes soft, but also sharp, like she felt sad but she was thinking hard about something at the same time. Then the console beeped and she turned to the screen, smiling, Grunt forgotten for the moment.

For half an hour, he sat there in the hard library chair, increasingly uncomfortable, watching Rachel vid chat with her father. She looked so happy, her eyes shining and a smile on her face, swinging her legs and talking a mile a minute—but everything she said was a lie. About an aunt, and school, and some boy on the school bus. Eventually, Grunt got bored and he got up to go look at the long rows of bound bundles, running his fingers along them. The paper felt good under his hands, smooth and clean. He took one out and started looking through it, but the black figures marched along just as they had in the one Rachel showed him, and they didn't make any sense.

A hand came down on his shoulder, hard, and he looked up at the librarian who had smiled at Rachel. She wasn't smiling now.

"You have to leave. You can't stay here."

He didn't know what to say. He didn't want to say anything. Talking to this person gave her power, it gave her authority. Instead he just stood there, silent, waiting to see what she would do.

But she didn't do anything, because Rachel was there. "He's with me," she told the librarian.

The librarian looked at Rachel, and then at Grunt, and then back at Rachel. "I've never seen him in here with you before."

"He's my … cousin, recently come to stay with us. His family was homeless for a while before we convinced them to come here, and … well, you know how boys are. He kind of got to like being all dirty and smelly." Rachel wrinkled her nose up, but she was smiling, and the librarian was smiling again, too.

"See if you can get him to clean up some if you bring him back. And keep him in the children's section. I'm sure Steinbeck is too advanced for him." She plucked the bundle out of his hands and put it back on the shelf.

"Of course, ma'am. Come along," Rachel said to Grunt. As soon as they were out of earshot, she hissed at him, "I told you to stay put!"

"I was bored." He looked at her curiously. "Why did you tell your father so many lies?"

Rachel squirmed a little. "Oh. That. He thinks I'm living with my mom's sister."

"But you're not."

"No. That bitch wanted me to be her slave—cook and clean while she sat around with her boyfriend. I'd rather be on my own. Besides, that way I can bank the money my dad sends and use it in emergencies." She stopped and looked Grunt over. "Like this one."

"What?" He didn't like the way she was looking at him.

"I think I will make you my cousin."

"We don't look anything alike."

Rachel looked him over. "Well … yeah, but that's because I'm about as Irish as you can be these days, and you're a bit of a mutt, aren't you? But those eyes of yours, such a bright blue? Those could be Irish. Besides, people who are related look different from each other all the time."

"But we're not related."

"Maybe not, but you need someone to take care of you."

"I do not!"

"Keep your voice down. Look, do you want to be on the streets all your life, live like Eno, all fat and lazy watching vids all day, or do you want a better life?"

Grunt frowned. Eno was just a kid, like them. He said as much, and Rachel laughed.

"He's at least 25. He seems like a kid because he lives like a kid, and because it makes it easier to control all of you."

"Huh." He digested that information, which made sense now that she said it.

"How old are you, Grunt?"

"I don't know."

Rachel nodded, as if she had figured as much. "I think you're about eight, what do you think?"

"Sure." What did it matter? He had never thought about how old he was because it didn't matter; today's meal, tonight's sleep, the credits and goods Eno required, those mattered.

"And your name. Do you want to keep being called Grunt, just like all the other grunts?"

He'd never given it much thought. "I guess?"

"Wrong answer. Grunts disappear because no one can tell them apart. And because they don't matter to anyone. But you matter to me, and I want to be able to call you by a real name. Are there any names you like?"

He shook his head. He didn't really know a lot of names. "You could call me Rachel," he ventured.

She didn't laugh at him, but he could tell she kind of wanted to. "Rachel's a girl's name. Also, it's my name. You need your own. Come on." She led him through the stacks of bound bundles. "Anything you ever want to know, you can find out in a library, but you have to be able to read. I'm going to teach you to read."

"Why?"

"Because knowledge matters," she said. "You have to know things if you're going to get anywhere. I've been watching you—you're smart, and you can think for yourself, and you're going to get on Eno's bad side one of these days because he doesn't like smart kids."

"Why aren't you on his bad side, then?"

"Because I don't care. I use his group as a place to crash and because there's protection in groups. But I don't want to take over, and I follow his orders, and I don't make waves. You're going to make waves, eventually, because you're going to figure out how he takes advantage of all of you, and then you're going to disappear, and I think you're too smart and capable to let that happen to you." She looked down, then, at the tips of her worn-out boots. "And maybe … maybe because I miss having a family. So … I'm asking you, Grunt. Will you let me give you a name, and teach you to read, and be … kind of my family?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what would happen when her father came back. But he didn't care. She was offering him opportunities he wouldn't have otherwise and the chance to be something more, and even though he had never thought much about it before—well, he had survived this long by knowing a good thing when it was standing right in front of him.

"Okay."

"Your enthusiasm bowls me over, kid." At his blank look, she chuckled. "We'll work on sarcasm, too. Ah, here we are." She reached down a book and flipped to the back. "Boys' names, boys' names … Let's see. Oh, this is a good one. The very first one—seems like a sign. Aaron." She looked at him over the top of the book. "What do you think? Does Aaron sound like someone you want to be?"

 _It had been. It still was. If it hadn't been for Rachel, he'd have died long ago, and someone else would be captaining the_ Normandy _against the Collectors. Well, if he died now, trying to save the galaxy, that was a lot better than dying as a kid on the street because some over-grown teenager was threatened by him._

 _Aaron took another long swallow of the bourbon. When they got to the Omega 4, he should remember to send Rachel a vid message to say good-bye, and to thank her for everything she'd done for him. He still had no idea what she had seen in a filthy, uneducated street rat with no name and no family, but he'd worked his ass off in the years since to be worthy of the gift she'd given him—his own name, and with it, an entire future._


	2. Shepard

_Thank you all for reading! Sorry I missed last week - I took the week off due to the holidays. I hope the New Year celebrations were safe and happy for all of you, and I wish you an exceptional 2018!_

* * *

 _Shepard took a seat at the end of the bar, letting the noise and chaos of Chora's Den wash over him. With Fist dead, it had come up a bit in respectability, but only a bit. Tonight, it was just the escape he was looking for, and he fit in nicely. No one would think to find the famed Commander Shepard drinking alone in a bar, and while his crewmembers would recognize his cargo pants, scuffed boots, and battered leather vest, no one else would expect him to wear that kind of thing._

 _The turian bartender certainly thought he belonged here amongst the other intergalactic flotsam and jetsam. Bracing his hands on the bar, he looked sharply down at Shepard. "You start any trouble in here, I'll finish it."_

 _"I'm not here for trouble. Just the opposite."_

 _"Well, you can't sit here for free."_

 _Shepard tossed a credit chit onto the bar, watching the turian's gaze sharpen when he read the name on it. "Mention that name out loud and trust me, you'll have all the trouble you can handle."_

 _"Message received, loud and clear." The bartender's tone had changed, and Shepard glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed it, relieved when no one seemed to be paying attention. "What can I get you?"_

 _"Got any Earth bourbon?"_

 _"That's a little above the grade for this place."_

 _"Fine. Whatever's cheap and wet."_

 _"Coming up." The turian poured two fingers of something blue into a glass and slid it across the bar._

 _Shepard tasted it, grimaced, and nodded. "Keep it full."_

 _"Whatever you say."_

 _Coming to the Citadel had been a mistake, clearly. Damned Udina, so smug and self-righteous, and the Council, so willfully blind to what was really going on in the galaxy. Shepard had never trusted Udina, not since the Ambassador had turned traitor on him and grounded him instead of letting him go after Saren, and that made him more prickly than usual when the Councilor was around—which was saying something, because Aaron Shepard was famed for his prickliness across the galaxy._

 _"You make me sick, you miserable coward!" Shepard had shouted at him at last._

 _Udina had come right back at him: "I wish I'd never heard the name Shepard. Humanity would have been better off if you'd died in that miserable slum you were born in."_

 _Of course Udina would know his history—or at least, the carefully crafted one that had made it into his official file, made up of just enough truth to pacify anyone who went looking. Shepard took another swallow of the terrible blue liquor, grinning to himself, wondering what Udina would say if he knew Shepard wasn't his real name—that he didn't know his real name at all, in fact._

About two years after she'd taken him under her wing, Rachel came bounding down the steps from the library. "Aaron, I've got news."

He looked up from his book—Steinbeck, the one he had looked at that first day, something called _Travels with Charley_ , about driving around the country with a dog—and noticed that at some point, Rachel had grown up. She looked more like a woman than a street kid now. His pulse quickened in alarm. He knew what happened to teenage girls on the streets, more often than not. He'd have to step up his knife-fighting skills if he was going to protect Rachel from that. He was getting bigger now, but not big enough to scare people off, so he'd have to be scary through skill instead.

"Aaron, did you hear me?"

"Sorry. What's up?"

"My father's coming home! The mission's over, and they're on their way back."

"Wow." He'd known this day was coming, but he hadn't been prepared for the lump that appeared in his throat at the news. "That's great. Congratulations."

She frowned at him, puzzled. "What are you—? Oh. Aaron, you simp, this is good news for both of us!"

"How is that?"

"Because you're going to come live with us, too. Father said so. He knows all about you."

Her father had learned the truth about where she was living about six months ago, and had hit the roof when he found out. No wonder he was coming back, Aaron thought. He doubted this strange man was going to be too thrilled about being saddled with some kid he didn't know.

"Trust me," Rachel assured him. "It'll all work out. Hasn't everything else?"

He had to admit it had. Closing the book, he got up and went with her back to their building. They'd left Eno's crew a while back and joined up with a looser organization that was easier for them to keep to themselves in. According to Rachel, her father wouldn't be back for another six months, so Aaron put it out of his mind. No use borrowing trouble—every day brought enough of its own.

 _The turian bartender refilled the glass, and Shepard nodded to him, picking it up and taking another swallow. Looking down into the blue depths, he thought of the blue sports drink Rachel had bought him, a rare indulgence, as they sat in the spaceport waiting for her father's shuttle to get in._

She had cleaned and tucked and pinned and inspected Aaron within an inch of his life, it felt like, and still didn't seem entirely pleased with the finished product. He couldn't blame her. He was going to feel bad for her when her father showed up and wanted nothing to do with him. At least pickings would be good here in the spaceport, he thought, looking over the top of the bottle at all the rich people dragging bags behind them or carrying them carelessly slung over their shoulders.

"Stop that," Rachel hissed.

"What?"

"You know what. We're not here for that. We're never going to have to do that again."

"Rachel."

"What?"

"Won't you miss it?"

She thought about that for a minute. "No. Not really. Will you?"

Aaron shrugged, uncomfortable. "It's … all I've ever done. What-what else can I do?" He hated the quaver in his voice. In front of anyone else, he wouldn't even have spoken. But this was all going to be over soon, anyway, as soon as Rachel's father came through the doors and saw him and sent him packing. So it didn't matter what else he could do, because he'd be right back to picking pockets in just a few more minutes, and he would lose— He looked over at Rachel, seeing the red hair and the blue eyes and the freckles, the smiling clever face of the only person who had ever cared for him. He would lose everything.

She was on her feet suddenly, waving her arms. "Father! Father!"

A man with red hair like hers dropped his bags and opened his arms, and she ran into them, and they held each other for a long time. Aaron had seen something like it in vids, and he looked away, embarrassed to be watching a moment so personal. He shouldn't have let her bring him here.

"Now," her father was saying, letting her go but holding onto her hand, looking at her like he was never going to let her go again, "where is this boy who has taken such good care of you?"

Aaron was confused. Rachel had been the one taking care of him all this time. But she was leading her father to him, smiling. "Aaron, this is my father. Father, this is Aaron."

"Young man." Aaron got to his feet, looking at the outstretched hand. Slowly he put his out, and Rachel's father shook it. "I have to thank you. Rachel's told me what you did for her."

"Sir … I'm sorry, I think you mean what she's done for me. Cleaned me up and taught me to read and …"

Rachel was frowning at him. "I did all that, sure, but that was after you saved my life. Don't you remember? When I first came onto Eno's crew, I didn't know what I was doing. You were the one who taught me how to steal, how to keep my things hidden, how to fight back." She looked up at her father. "He did it for all the new kids, like it was natural, like anyone would have. He still does. And look, he doesn't even know he's doing it."

Looking back, he supposed maybe he did, but … they needed to know, and if no one else was going to show them the ropes, he might as well. There wasn't anything big about that.

But Rachel's father seemed to think there was. His green eyes were studying Aaron closely, as if he saw things in his face that no one had ever seen before. "To hear Rachel tell it, if she's still alive to come home to, it's because you helped her through those early days. And apparently you've picked up the reading remarkably fast. If you want it, you have a home with us for as long as you need one."

"I … I'm not anybody. I don't even know who my parents were."

"It doesn't matter where you came from—it matters where you intend to go. Where do you want to go, Aaron?"

The answer came out of his mouth without his ever having thought about it before: "To the stars, sir."

Rachel's father smiled. "Then that's where you'll go, Aaron—Aaron what?"

He shook his head. He only had the one name, and Rachel had given it to him. Looking at her mutely, he asked her to give him the rest now.

"I know!" She beamed at him. "If I'm Rachel McLamb, he was my shepherd. That'll be you, Aaron Shepherd."

Of course, he had misspelled it in his haste the first time he'd had to fill out formal paperwork, so Shepard it became and Shepard it stayed, all those years in school, and in the Alliance academy, and on the starships. Rachel was a teacher back on Earth now, her father, Uncle Doug, long since retired from the Alliance navy, and Aaron was far less diligent about keeping in touch than he should be, but he had never forgotten what he owed them.

 _A small well-formed fist punched his arm, hard, and blue liquid slopped over the edge of the glass. "I heard there was a memorial Shepard statue down here in the bar, so I came to see it." Jack looked him over, taking the seat next to him. "I've seen better likenesses." She looked up at the bartender. "What he's having. Double it. And put it on his tab."_

 _"And shut your damn mandibles," Shepard growled._

 _The bartender nodded, snapping his mouth shut and pulling his gaze away from Jack's nearly naked upper torso long enough to pour her a drink. The rest of the bar was keeping their distance from her—gorgeous and scantily clad in the top half she might be, but she also radiated danger._

 _She took the glass from the bartender, drank it down, and thunked it onto the bar ready for a refill. "What's got you down here drinking alone, Shepard?"_

 _He glanced at her._

 _Jack rolled her eyes. "Fucking politicians. Why don't you just kill them all?"_

 _"I'm going to go kill all the Collectors instead, then come back and rub it in Udina's face."_

 _"Ooh, actual parts?"_

 _Shepard grinned. "Might be worth a try."_

 _Jack accepted her refilled drink and held it up. He clinked his against it. "To the Collectors," she said. "And … what happens after."_

 _Shepard raised his eyebrows. "What's happening after?"_

 _"Well … besides smashing Collector guts in the Councilor's face … I thought, maybe, if you want, we could go to Earth."_

 _He imagined what Rachel and Uncle Doug would say to Jack. Probably they would love her, just as Shepard had come to. They'd always been able to see beneath the surface to the real person. "Yeah," he said now. "Yeah, that's what I want."_

 _"Good."_

 _They drank on it, draining the glasses, the blue liquid burning all the way down._


	3. Human

_Thank you all for reading! The format changes a bit from here on out - the first two chapters were conceived together, but then I kept coming up with more definitions to explore with him, so the story grew from there._

* * *

"Damn, Garrus, those scars keep surprising me. Like something out of a horror vid." Shepard grinned.

To his surprise, nothing like a smile appeared in Garrus's eyes. Turian physiology made a smile a difficult concept to begin with, but Garrus's eyes were unusually solemn. And no snappy comeback, either. Garrus usually gave as good as he got.

"What's up, Vakarian?"

Garrus looked around the mess hall. It wasn't quite full, but a fair amount of the off-duty crew were sitting around the tables. None of them seemed to be paying attention to Garrus or Shepard, but—oh, who was he kidding? His people paid attention to him all the time. It was one of the burdens of carrying possibly the most famous name, and unwieldiest reputation, in the galaxy. Clearing his throat, Garrus said, "Uh … Commander. Can we talk privately?"

"Sure." Shepard got to his feet, carrying his empty plates to the kitchen area. He could still remember what Captain Anderson had said, back when the _Normandy_ was new and XO Shepard had left his dishes on the table for someone else to deal with. "Shepard. A good leader cleans up after himself. He takes care of his ship like he takes care of his people." Good man, Anderson. Too bad he was stuck so firmly under Udina's thumb. Some days, Shepard regretted making Udina the Councilor and not Anderson.

When the doors of the gun battery slid closed behind them, Shepard turned to his old friend. "What's up? Are the scars bothering you?"

"What? Oh, these." Garrus reached up to touch the scarred side of his face. "On the contrary. A real turian has battle marks. I could be on the cover of _Palaven Playmates_ with these."

Shepard mouthed the name. "Seriously?"

"Well, the name in my language is much more … interesting. But I digress. It's not my scars I worry about, it's … um, Commander—" He cleared his throat. "Shepard. Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately?"

Had he? Shepard couldn't remember. His unscheduled awakening when the lab facility was attacked had left him unfinished; he'd had one or two odd bright marks in his skin at the time. They weren't anything he worried about much, and it wasn't as though he spent a lot of time worrying about what he looked like aboard the ship. Or at all, for that matter, not when there was so much work to be done. "Yes?" he said doubtfully.

"No. I don't think you have. Has Dr. Chakwas looked at those?"

"A while back, when we first set out. Why?" He vaguely remembered an email from Chakwas about his scars, but he hadn't paid much attention to it. What were a few scars compared to missing colonists and the threat of a Reaper invasion?

"You … might want her to." Garrus frowned at him. Shepard was amazed at the way the turian managed such a gamut of expressions with a plated face that didn't really move. "Are you telling me you haven't noticed the way people stare at you?"

"They've pretty much stared at me since the Skyllian Blitz. I got used to it a long time ago."

"So you haven't noticed the difference."

"No. What the hell, Garrus? What is this?"

"They're spreading, Shepard."

"What?" Shepard's hand went to his face. He needed a shave, but beyond that, he couldn't feel anything different. "No, they're not."

"They are. And that's not the worst of it."

"Really. You're saying I'm some hideous scarred creature that terrifies small children and voluses, and that's not the worst of it?"

Garrus hesitated. "Yes. That's what I'm saying. Look, Shepard, you need to go look in the mirror."

"That an order, Vakarian?"

"Let's call it friendly advice." Sensing Shepard's rising temper, Garrus stressed the "friendly".

Without another word, Shepard turned and walked away. He fumed all the way up the elevator. Go look in a mirror. Come on, it was just a couple of lines. What was Garrus getting so het up about?

He practically punched the buttons on the pad keying himself into his quarters, and then had to retype them more calmly. Instead of looking in a mirror—damned turian, who did he think he was, giving orders?—he poured himself a stiff drink, sat down on the couch, put his feet up, and read a report from the engine room. Only then did he get to his feet and saunter over to the bathroom. He used the head and washed his hands, finally allowing himself to glance casually in the mirror. No subordinate was going to tell him what to do, no matter how old a companionship they shared.

At first, his gaze flicked over his reflected face in his accustomed manner. Hair, check. Teeth, check. Shave—still needed one. Wait—was that a new scar on his chin? He leaned closer to the mirror. It was. Well, so he had a new scar. Maybe he had a couple.

Finally he looked himself straight in the eye, and he started so badly he nearly fell into the head. Collecting himself, he leaned closer, and at last he saw what Garrus had meant. Not only was his skin practically criss-crossed with bright lines, his eyes were … orange.

What in the hell had Cerberus done to him?

What even was he? Was all this talk about Commander Shepard being rebuilt a lie? Was he actually some kind of machine? He knew he had some cybernetic implants, but … He took another good look at his eyes. They were actually glowing.

He ripped off one of the arm braces he wore, his fingers searching for a pulse in his wrist. It was there, beating fast because he was agitated, but steady. Surely if he had a pulse, he was human. Wasn't he?

It had never occurred to him before to wonder, or even to think about what it meant to be human. Not that he would have minded being turian, or krogan, or maybe drell. He wasn't sure he would have made a particularly effective asari, and he had no desire to be salarian. Or volus or elcor, and certainly not hanar. But he had been born on Earth, born a human, and he had always been fine with that. To be a machine, though, or some kind of … was he a hybrid? Was he even a person? Could Cerberus just make another one of him if they felt like it? If so, who was he?

In a rage—and something of a panic, if truth be told—he stomped out of his quarters and onto the elevator, heading down to the only person who could explain this to him.

He fumed all the time he was waiting for Miranda to open her office door to him. She looked up from behind her desk, her eyes wary. "What—"

But she didn't get any further, because Shepard slammed his fists down on her desk and leaned over her, shouting, "What the fuck did you do to me, Miranda?"

To her credit, she didn't flinch. "Saved your life."

"Look at me!" he roared. "What am I?"

She did look, and her eyes softened with pity. "You're Commander Shepard. And Commander Shepard is one scary s.o.b."

"Don't make jokes. What am I, Miranda?" There was a note of desperation in his voice that he didn't like, but couldn't keep out.

"We didn't get a chance to put on the finishing touches because of Wilson, Shepard. You know that."

"But they're getting worse."

"Yes, I can see that."

"So, what am I? Am I some kind of a machine? Is my skin wearing out?"

"No. You're human, Shepard, just with some cybernetic implants, and your skin seems to be fairly normal skin."

"Then why are the scars getting worse?"

Her eyes hardened. "Why don't you ask your friend Jack?"

Shepard blinked in confusion. "What does Jack have to do with my scars?" He'd known Miranda wasn't happy about the growing connection between himself and the tattooed anarchist in the hold, but to blame Jack for this—

"It's about the kind of person you're turning into." Miranda cleared her throat. "It can't have escaped your notice that you're a bit of a bastard."

"I don't have time to babysit, that's true."

"You're a stone cold killer, Shepard. That's who you've always been. It's why we brought you back. Your kind of take-no-prisoners style is what we needed to fight the Collectors. It's what we'll need when the Reapers invade."

"Yeah, I agree," he said slowly, "but what does that have to do with my scars?"

Miranda sighed, pushing her chair back. "When we made the decision to work with cybernetic implants in your treatment, we needed them on a certain schedule. The company we found who could do the work on our timeline were working with … normal people."

"I'm not normal?"

"Hardly. If you were normal, we wouldn't have spent an astronomical amount of money raising you from the dead. But what I meant is that the cybernetics were made to interact with a gamut of human emotions. You shut your emotions down; you have to make decisions often in a split second, so you make them without a second thought; you spend the majority of your time angry." She frowned thoughtfully. "I really shouldn't have been so surprised you and Jack would find each other such kindred spirits."

"Does she have cybernetic implants, too? Is that what the tattoos cover?"

Miranda's frown deepened. "I wouldn't know. I wasn't in charge of her treatment. And I don't care to ask."

"So you're saying that if I was a cheerleader, my skin would be clear as a baby's butt?"

A smile crossed Miranda's face at the imagery. "I'm not sure I'd go that far, but … yes. The implants would react better to a more expected range of human emotions. Yours being more … focused, the implants are reacting more strongly."

"Why only in my face?"

"I would think that was obvious. Where do the emotions usually show most clearly?"

"Oh. Good point." Shepard cleared his throat. "So … how much of me is cybernetics?"

"I'd say thirty percent, give or take."

"Thirty percent." He wasn't sure if that was more or less than he was expecting. Hell, he wasn't sure if it was more or less than he could accept. He didn't know what to think anymore.

"Didn't Dr. Chakwas tell you all this? We had a discussion about it some time ago."

"She sent an email a while back."

"Which you ignored because it had to do with something other than work."

"Something like that."

"Well, go read it. Think about it." Miranda pulled her chair back up to the table, ostentatiously looking down at the datapad in front of her.

"So my choices are to become a completely different person—or become some kind of glowing monster?"

"Or you could fund the medlab expansion Dr. Chakwas has been asking for and she can seal off your cybernetics."

"She can do that?"

"You really didn't read the email, did you?"

Shepard caught on now. "But you did."

Miranda shrugged, not looking up.

He sighed. "Of course you did." He let himself out of her office, since she was clearly done with the conversation, and stood in the mess, watching as the night shift ate their early dinner.

Normal human emotions. They laughed. They worried. They sat expressionless, focused on eating. What was normal?

On the other hand, maybe he did need to loosen up more. His idea of fun was trying to outlift Grunt in the weight room. He always lost and ended up stomping off angry while Grunt cackled at him. Would it kill him to join in the next Skyllian poker night? Or let Kasumi lend him a book, like she was always trying to? He had never let himself get too soft, never let himself think about the families of the men he had to kill or the feelings of the few who were lost in the greater needs of the many. He had always considered that one of his strengths, but maybe it was a weakness, too. If he didn't understand what he did to people, was he in danger of becoming—well, a Reaper?

A young ensign looked up, seeing him standing there, and before she could cover it he saw fear in her face.

So. Even to his own people he was a monster. Well, he wouldn't be one any longer. Starting today, he was human, with all that that implied.

He strode across the mess to the medbay.


	4. Lover

_Thank you all for reading!_

* * *

Jack looked up as Aaron came down the steps to the hold at the bottom of the ship where she had set herself up. "Thought I told you I needed space."

"You did."

"Then what the fuck are you doing down here?"

That caught him short. What was he doing down here? Other than that his feet had automatically turned this way when he finished his inspection of the engine rooms; other than that he hadn't been able to stop thinking about her since she boarded his ship; other than that he desired her more than any woman he had ever known. He met her eyes, meaning to answer her tone for tone, but what came out was naked truth, instead. "I needed you."

Jack stood up, her beautiful eyes widening, even as she backed up until she was pressed against the wall. "Come on, Shepard. Don't go there."

"I'm sorry. I can't help it."

"Why? You know I'm not interested in some dumbshit love affair."

"So you've said."

"It never goes right."

Aaron kept moving toward her, drawn as if by an invisible rope tied between them. "Why do you keep trying to put so much distance between us?"

"I …"

He held her gaze, waiting, even as something flashed in her eyes, fear or longing or some combination of the two. "There was this guy," she said at last, in a rush, like the words were coming from her without her wanting them to. "Murtock. Dumbass."

"What made him such an idiot?"

"Testosterone," Jack flashed at him.

"Really, Jack."

"Fine. We used each other, right? For sex, for biotics … it was fun."

"But he made it something more," Aaron guessed.

"Yeah. He … came back for me when he shouldn't have. I got out. He didn't. Later, on the shuttle, this message started playing. He'd recorded it for me." Jack looked down at her boots, but not before Aaron had seen a suspicious shine in her eyes, something almost like tears. "He talked about the future, about … settling down. About … how he loved me."

"You blame yourself for his death?"

Jack's head snapped up, her eyes blazing. "Like hell I do! It was his own damn fault. But it was inevitable as soon as he started having … feelings." She accompanied the last word with a sneer. "Feelings make you sloppy; they get you killed."

"So you put up a wall to keep people out."

"It's supposed to keep you out, too, you asshole. But you keep pushing and pushing and … What am I supposed to do with that?"

"Accept that you feel it, too?" he suggested. He was closer to her now, almost close enough to reach out and touch her smooth, colorful skin.

"I'll—" Jack's eyes were on his, her beautiful lips parted. "This will kill you, too, you moron."

"You forget: I'm already dead. Undead, technically. Do your worst." He stepped closer again, and this time he did reach for her, his hand settling gently on her waist. She stiffened at the touch, but didn't move to take his hand away.

She swallowed. "You're crazy."

Aaron chuckled, stepping closer still and putting his other hand on her waist, waiting for her to shove him backward or send him flying across the hold with a biotic blast. "We're all nuts. It's practically stamped on the boarding passes for this mission."

"You know this will just get us both hurt. Or you'll mess around on me and I'll kill you, or—"

He decided not to bother protesting that last part. She wouldn't believe him anyway. "And?"

"And that sucks!"

"So does wanting you with every breath and knowing you want me, too, and having you try to keep me away all the time." He inched even closer still, their bodies almost, but not quite, touching. "Think how much fun we could be having instead."

"You—you don't feel that way."

"Yeah, I really do. I miss you when you're not around. You make me feel—alive. On my toes. Like anything could happen. Like everything could happen."

"Shepard. I don't … I can't trust you, or anyone. Not this way," she said but her eyes were on his mouth, and her tongue darted out, moistening her lower lip, the tremor in her voice belying her words.

"Look, Jack," he said softly, "I know this freaks you out. But you're lying if you say you don't trust me. I know you do; and I know that freaks you out more than anything."

"Don't tell me what I feel."

"Why not? You're always telling me what I should feel. I'm just pointing out that we fit together." He pressed his hips against hers, watching her eyes close at the contact, her cheeks flush. "Not just like that, although I'm dying to feel you," Aaron whispered in her ear. "But … on the battlefield, too, and down here just talking. I want you, Jack, all of you." He leaned in, brushing his lips against hers, drinking in the little moan she gave, the way her mouth clung to his.

Then she pushed him away, hard. There was a little biotic juice in there, he could feel it. "Get the fuck away from me, Shepard. I—I need some time to think."

"Take all the time you need. I'm not going anywhere."

"Yeah?" There was a challenge in her eyes as she looked at him. "Tell that to Miranda. And Tali. And Chambers. And your precious asari back on Illium."

"It might interest you to know that I have."

"Bullshit."

"Nope. Absolute truth."

"Oh, go away, Shepard. You're too much."

He could see, though, that it was her own feelings that were too much, and so he was able to smile at her when he said, "That's part of my charm." He turned to leave, stopping at the bottom of the stairs when she called his name. "What's up?"

"Do you—do you have any idea what it's like to think you're alone and have someone tell you that you're not?"

He thought of Rachel. It wasn't the same … but then again, in some ways, it was. "Yeah. I do."

"You don't have to agree so fast, you fucker."

Aaron grinned at Jack's swift rejoinder. "Sorry. Next time, I'll pause first."

"Smartass."

"One of the many things you like about me." He flashed the grin at her over his shoulder, surprising a smile on her face as well, and left her there, hoping for both their sakes that she wouldn't need to think too long.


	5. Partner

_Many apologies for the posting gap! Winter doldrums were bad this year. This is complete, now, so there shouldn't be any further gaps - expect updates on Fridays. Thank you for sticking with me!_

* * *

It was stupid to keep going over the plan, Shepard knew. They didn't have anywhere near enough certainty about what they would find on the other side of the Omega 4 relay to rely on any given plan. He would have to change course on the fly, making decisions on the spur of the moment. And of course he knew his people inside and out by now, their skills and weaknesses and how they worked with each other. But reading the dossiers over again gave him a feeling of at least being able to do something to prepare. He couldn't just sit here and do nothing, and he sure as hell wasn't going to be getting any sleep.

He took a deep, burning swallow of bourbon, closing his eyes as it spread through him, warming him. It wasn't enough, but it was something. Would this be his last glass? Would these be his last hours on the _Normandy_ , his last hours of life? He had died once already, but he hadn't had the chance to think about it then; he'd just acted, and then the end was inevitable. It had been much easier than this.

Maybe that was some comfort, he thought, knowing how easy it had been to die, how quickly and surely the decision that had led to his death had come to him.

Or so he told himself, turning to the next dossier and studying the description of Samara's biotic strengths. Whoever had put the dossier together wasn't as precise as Shepard would have liked, focusing less on the details and more on the descriptors, but it was close enough when added to what he had learned about Samara from working with her.

A faint knock came at the door, so soft he almost thought he hadn't heard it, and he held his breath, listening hard. There was no sound for several heartbeats, and then it came again, a little louder.

"Come in," he called.

The door slid open as he closed the dossier file and stood up. He was both startled and yet not startled to see Jack standing there in the doorway. She shifted from foot to foot.

"Shepard."

"Jack."

"I— You …" She shook her head. "I shouldn't have come here."

"I wasn't expecting you," he admitted, "but … I'm glad you're here." He wanted to move toward her, but she was so tense, every line of her body poised to flee at the slightest provocation.

"I've been thinking about you, and—Shepard, you fucker, what have you done to me?"

Aaron grinned. That sounded more like her. "What would you like me to do to you?"

"Don't be cute. Don't you dare stand here and be cute, not when you—when I—" She shook her head, her face distressed. "Maybe you're right, maybe I need to … Oh, damn it." She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

"Hey." He closed the space between them, tilting her face up toward him, seeing the sheen of tears there in her eyes before she could blink it away. "It's all right."

"Is it?"

He nodded, holding her gently there with his hands cupped around her jaw. "No more questions."

Her eyes were luminous in the blue light from the aquarium, her mascara running as she blinked away more tears.

"No more questions," Aaron repeated, and then he kissed her.

He had imagined kissing Jack as a passionate experience, wild and uncontrolled and savage. But this was not that at all. This was … sweeter, softer. And when it was over, Jack came into his arms and laid her head on his shoulder, her body trembling against his.

Aaron was filled with wonder, with a knowledge that his feelings for this woman went far deeper than he had imagined. "Jack—" he began.

She pulled his head down to hers. "Shut up, Aaron." She kissed him again, and then there was no further need for words.


	6. Soldier

_Thank you all for reading!_

* * *

Quietly Shepard slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb the outflung tattooed limbs of his lover. He crossed the room to his desk and turned on his terminal, clicking onto his email as he sank naked into the chair.

He reread the email from Admiral Hackett with annoyance that didn't quite overcome the heaviness of his heart; then he read the email from Anderson with less annoyance and more of a sense of a duty he had not carried out.

Undecided, he read them again. And again. Until a voice came from the bed, and he looked past the glare of the monitor to glimpse her sitting up amidst the tangle of the sheets. "At it again? I told you to delete those things."

"I can't just delete an email from the commander of the Fifth Fleet. Or from Anderson. I owe him."

"You don't owe any of them shit. What did they do for you? Left you for dead, that's what."

"I don't owe Cerberus anything anymore, either. I did what the Illusive Man wanted—I took out the Collectors."

"Yeah, but you destroyed their base, too, and pissed him off." Jack got up and crossed the room, the light from the fish tank playing across her tattoos. "In my book, that makes you free, not some Alliance stooge."

"I'm not a stooge."

"You are if you let them bully you into running back to Earth so they can play patty-cake with the batarians."

"I destroyed a planet, Jack! A whole batarian colony!"

"To keep the Reapers from coming through. In the end, it's a win."

"The batarians don't feel that way." He leaned back in the chair and looked up at her. "If it keeps the batarians from going to war with the Alliance, what's a couple months sitting in a tribunal on Earth? I like Earth. I grew up there."

"Earth smirth," Jack said, her face twisting. She had never been there, he knew—at least, if she had, she didn't remember it—and liked to make a big show of not feeling any kind of connection to anything or anyone. "Who cares?"

Shepard thought of Doug and Rachel, still living in Oklahoma. "I do. I still have … friends there." He had never told Jack much about his past. Enough to let her know that he was like her, an orphan, with nowhere to go back to, but not about what Rachel had done for him, or Doug. He heard from them only sporadically, anyway. They were busy—Doug was remarried and had a small cattle ranch, and Rachel taught school. Shepard wondered if she was married, or thinking about it.

"Yeah? So go see them."

"Why don't you come with me?" They had talked about this before, briefly, but it had been forgotten since the Collector base. At least, it hadn't come up again.

Jack glanced at him, startled. "You're serious? You want to take me to Earth? To meet your … friends?"

"Yeah." He reached for her hand, tugging her down into his lap.

Never liking to feel captured, Jack squirmed away from him, back toward the fish tank, watching the schools of fish flowing through the water. "You don't mean that."

"Of course I do."

She glanced at him over her shoulder. "Just to visit your friends? Then we leave?"

"Well …" He looked over at his terminal, Anderson's email still up on the screen. "I'd probably be noticed in transit, and I'd likely have to go to Vancouver and—"

"I fucking knew it." Jack whirled around, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him. "Damn it, Shepard, why do you have to be such a goody-goody all the time? You really are the king of the fucking Boy Scouts, aren't you?"

He restrained a smile, thinking that Jack was one of the few who could legitimately think of him that way. Most of the galaxy thought of him as ruthless, hard, someone who got things done without considering the consequences. "It's my duty, Jack. I'm still an Alliance soldier."

"No, you're not! You didn't go back to them after Cerberus rebuilt you."

"Doesn't matter. It's not that simple."

"Yes, it is. The Alliance abandoned you, the Illusive Man fired you—that means you're free. You don't owe any of them anything. You don't owe the fucking galaxy anything." She growled with the intensity of her anger. "I told you not to go off after that stupid woman in the first place."

"You mean Dr. Kenson? Jack, if I hadn't gone, she would have let the Reapers through the relay." He got to his feet, facing her down, unable to believe that she truly felt that way. "We'd have been at war with the fucking Reapers!"

"And why was that your problem? Why is it always you?"

"I don't know, but it is."

"Then stop! Make someone else go save the goddamned day for a change!"

"No one else was responsible for blowing up a batarian colony," he pointed out.

"So you're going, then. Tail between your legs, like a well-trained little Alliance pooch? They whistle and you jump for it?"

The decision had been made, or as good as, but he was damned if he was going to admit it to her with that attitude. "If I go, it'll be because I thought it was the right thing to do."

"You know they'll make you their whipping boy, lock you up and throw away the key, make you an example. Then where will you be when the Reapers really do attack?" Her face lit up at that, knowing she had found an argument that would speak to him.

But he was ahead of her, and had already thought about it. "If I go, and I make them see what a danger we truly face, then maybe when the Reapers come the Alliance will be ready."

"They haven't listened to you about the Reapers yet. What makes you think they're ever going to?"

"I can be pretty persuasive, or so I'm told." He grinned at her.

"You didn't persaude the Council."

"No." The grin slipped away as if it had never been. "I didn't. Maybe I won't have any better luck with whatever tribunal the Alliance sets me in front of. But Jack, I have to try! I know what's coming—I know it better than anyone. And maybe they won't listen, but if there's a chance, one single damned chance, that I can help prepare, that I can get someone to listen to me who will know how to stop it before it starts … I have to take it."

"So you're going?" she asked, the anger and the bluster gone from her voice, replaced by disappointment and defeat.

He hesitated only a moment. "Yeah. I think I am."

"You expect me to go with you?"

"I wish you would." Not that he could see Jack in an Alliance facility, but—there was something here between them, a connection, an understanding, that he had never felt before. He didn't want to give it, or her, up if he didn't have to.

"I thought we were going to be pirates."

They had talked that way, after the Illusive Man's anger when Shepard destroyed the Collector base. Shepard had been angry enough himself to chuck it all and find his own path, and the rest of the team seemed to feel similarly, so that had been the tentative plan—until he'd been asked to go save this missing doctor, finding her indoctrinated and ready to open the door to the Reapers, and had blown up a batarian colony in the process of preventing that catastrophe.

"We were," he said to Jack. "But … I have to do this."

"I'm not coming with you, Aaron."

"No." He tried not to show how hurt he was. He hadn't expected her to, although he had hoped she might.

"Or sticking around to wait for the Alliance's lapdog."

That struck deep. But he was damned if he was going to let her see it. "Fine. You want me to have Joker drop you off somewhere?"

There was a very brief silence. She seemed to have expected him to argue—and Shepard was a little surprised at himself that he hadn't. Then she turned, picking up her discarded pants from where they had been flung earlier in the night. "Yeah. Tell him to set a course for Omega."

"Omega? Why there?"

"Know anywhere better for a girl to get in trouble?"

He didn't. "I wish you luck."

"Yeah. You, too." She picked up the rest of her clothes and moved toward the door. "Been nice knowing you, Shepard."

"Real nice," he agreed.

Jack hesitated before tapping the button that would open the door for her, and Shepard watched her, his heart in his throat. Was she really going to do this? Could she? Then, when the button didn't respond, she slapped her hand on it more firmly, the door opened, and she was gone.

Shepard looked back at Anderson's email and sighed. He couldn't have done anything else. The Reapers were coming, and he was the only person who had any hope of getting the Alliance to listen and prepare. And he did feel bad about the batarians. If he had it to do over again, he would do exactly the same, but that didn't mean he didn't care that people had died in the process. If that cost him Jack—well, had he really expected she would stay forever? He supposed it was a loss he could live with. Or so he told himself, but his room, and his heart, felt surprisingly empty without her.


	7. Prothean

_Thank you all for reading!_

* * *

The Prothean turned around, all four of his eyes fixing on Aaron's face, and he felt a jolt at the contact. Something in the gaze, the physical connection of Shepard's hand on the Prothean's arm and the Prothean's hand on Shepard's shoulder, touched a chord within Shepard that had lain dormant since he had first connected with the beacon here on Eden Prime years ago. From the moment his boots had touched the planet's surface again today he had felt a stirring within him. Through the bond that coursed between them Shepard had shared the Prothean's memories of his last moments before entering the pod, the last moments of the Prothean people, and felt them as if they were his own.

"You," the Prothean said, slowly, as if the word felt new in his mouth. His voice was as husky as you would imagine the voice of a man who had been in stasis for fifty thousand years would be.

"I came here for you," Shepard told him.

The Prothean's grip on his shoulder tightened, his eyes looking harder into Shepard's, as if he could see into his very soul. Shepard supposed that answered the question of whether he had one, something he had occasionally wondered about.

Around them stretched the beauty of Eden Prime—somewhat the worse the wear from the attacks of Cerberus and the work of the archaeologists—and Aaron wondered what this place had looked like during the lives of the Protheans, whether this Prothean recognized his surroundings or not.

"How many others?" the Prothean whispered.

"Just you."

The Prothean's eyes closed in pain.

"You can understand me?" Shepard asked him.

Without opening his eyes, the Prothean nodded. "Yes, now that I have read your physiology."

"So you were reading me while I was seeing your memories?"

Another nod. "You are marked. I can feel it within you."

"I saw what happened to your people; I know you must be grieving."

"You feel it, don't you?"

"Yes." He was trying not to, but Shepard could indeed feel the loss of the Protheans deeply, as deeply as he had felt the attack on Earth. "That was—I'm sorry, but that was fifty thousand years ago. My people are under the threat of that loss right now. They are dying, falling to the attacks of the Reapers."

The Prothean sighed. "So the cycle is ending again."

Behind them, Shepard heard Garrus's voice, practical as always. "Not a good place for a chat, Commander. Cerberus will come back; they won't give up this prize easily."

Shepard nodded. "Will you come to my ship? It's not safe here."

"You fight the Reapers? You, a human? A primitive?"

"Yes."

"How is this possible? How can a human be … Prothean?" He caught Shepard by the arms, holding him tightly, his eyes probing Shepard's, seeming to see and hear inside him. "There is fear in you. The Reapers are winning."

"They are. We want to stop them. We have to."

"How long?"

"Not long. I first found one of your beacons here on this planet just over three years ago. We stopped a Reaper invasion then, held them off, but … now they're back."

"So it has only just begun." The Prothean began to sneer, but then caught himself, catching onto a word and repeating it. "Beacon?" His hands tightened on Shepard's arms, and the vision flashed through Shepard's mind all over again, the one he had first experienced when he touched the beacon. The Prothean let him go, all four eyes wide with shock. "You saw it all! Our destruction, our warnings … Why weren't they heeded? Why didn't you prepare, human?"

"I couldn't understand," Shepard said, shaking his head. "The beacon nearly killed me."

Something softened, faintly, in the Prothean's expression. "I see. I can still sense the turmoil in you. Witnessing the extinction of our empire, our people. The fabric of your being was forever marked that day."

"Yes, it was." More than Shepard had known, it seemed. He felt a kinship with this being in front of him, wanted him to understand that he hadn't been sitting on his hands all this time. "I tried to piece the vision together, and I tried to explain what I could understand, but …"

The Prothean sighed. "So communication is still primitive in this cycle," he said wearily.

"We held them off as long as we could with the information we had, but it wasn't enough. They were determined to see the cycle through."

"And you, human? How determined are you to stop it?"

Aaron held the Prothean's gaze. "If I live, the Reapers die. All of them."

The Prothean searched his eyes, looking through them at the core of Shepard. "You seem to be telling the truth, human."

"Commander. Commander Aaron Shepard."

"You may call me Javik." Javik turned and looked out across the vista of Eden Prime. Behind him, Shepard could sense Liara's awe and Garrus's restlessness, and he knew Cerberus could not be far behind them, but he didn't have it in him to hurry this moment.

At last Javik turned back to him. "I will join you, Commander Aaron Shepard. And the last thing the Reapers hear before they die will be the last voice of the Protheans sending them to their grave."

Aaron felt that voice deep within him, the essential alteration of his self that had begun when he touched that beacon, and he nodded. "Yes." He reached out, and they clasped hands, sealing their partnership.


	8. Jack

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

He supposed he should have known the truth when Liara looked at him, her eyes soft and hesitant, and asked him if what they'd once had together was still there. But he had been so startled by the question, thinking that the decision not to continue with Liara had been made already so long ago, that it hadn't occurred to him to consider anything but how to frame his refusal. He hadn't even known what to say. He had stood there staring at Liara until she had prodded him.

"Shepard?"

The name woke him from his trance—it was always Shepard with her. Never Aaron. Because even after … everything, she still saw him as a symbol rather than as a man. As hardened and tough as Liara had become, as disillusioned, as entranced with the Shadow Broker's knowledge and power, there was still a hero worship in her that left her unable to see him as anything other than the man who had saved her on Therum, the one who had taken her along with him and shown her the galaxy in a whole new way. She would always see him like that, he knew, and the answer had come so easily then that he hadn't thought further about whether another woman would have garnered a different response from him.

It hadn't been hard to say no, to put his hand on her shoulder and shake his head and say he was sorry, but they weren't meant for one another. And she had taken it well, with courage. Liara had that in spades. He left her and went back to work, his whole focus on the never-ending tasks to accomplish before he could think about leading a fleet back to Earth and taking out the Reapers once and for all.

* * *

It should have been a clue when he first saw the name on the list of instructors he was reading over as Cortez piloted the shuttle toward Grissom Academy. Jacqueline Nought. _Jack_. His heart had leaped in his chest, even as his head was scoffing at him for imagining that Jack was a teacher. Jack. Teaching children. Right. Surely this one had to be someone else, because who in their right mind would give her a job like that? And why would she take it, even if it was offered?

But he hadn't heard a word from her since their last argument, when he'd said he was going to Earth to face up to his tribunal whether she liked it or not, and she'd said she didn't like it, and fuck him anyway, why did he think she cared what he did? Or words to that effect. He hadn't known where she had gone after that, and marooned on Earth as he had been, he hadn't been able to find out.

He hadn't had a chance to see Doug or Rachel while he was there, either, stuck in Vancouver at the Alliance facility, and he hadn't tried that hard, not wanting them to see him like that, disgraced and grounded. And he hadn't tried very hard to find Jack, either, in his rare moments of free extranet time, sure that this particular version of Commander Shepard, the one leashed by the Alliance like a misbehaving dog, wasn't something she wanted. And in the aftermath of the attack on Earth, he had tried not to think of any of them—of Doug and Rachel in the midst of the Reaper invasion, of Jack somewhere out in space no doubt trying to fight and getting herself in trouble.

But if she was here, at Grissom … He leaned forward, hovering over Cortez's shoulder, even though he knew the pilot hated that.

"We're getting there, Commander."

"Not fast enough, Lieutenant."

"Nothing's ever fast enough for you."

"Damn right. Now step on the gas, will you? I'd like to get there while there's still something to save." But the words were too true for comfort, and he had to pull his pistol, checking it over with exaggerated care, to put something in his line of sight to stop the visions of what—of who—he might find dead already inside the academy.

* * *

When he saw her … then he knew.

Her beautiful tattooed face. Her dark hair grown out, pulled back, softening the edges just a bit, her eyes hard as ever as they met his, her thoughts unreadable. "Well, well. Aaron fucking Shepard. When Kahlee said she was sending out an SOS, I had no idea we'd be getting the king of the Boy Scouts."

It stung. Was that really how she still saw him, some goody-goody? Aaron Shepard was rarely at a loss for words, but all he could manage right now was her name. "Jack."

She wasn't listening to him, anyway; she had turned back to her students and was riding them about their performance in the fight. Knowing her as he did, he could hear that she was proud of them, that she cared about them and had been frightened for them, and was covering it all by being angry. He wondered if they could hear that, too.

And then she was leaping over the wall, landing easily and coming toward him, and he was trying not to smile, trying to brace himself for anything, even while realizing that he had never been happier to see anyone in his life.

So when she punched him, saying "That was for leaving, dumbass," he wasn't entirely surprised. And when she followed that up with a kiss … well, he would have had to be coherent to be surprised. The feel of her body in his arms, all energy and tightly leashed power, like holding a live electric wire; the always startling softness of her full lips against his; the undeniable passion in her kiss. Those were all he could think about.

It didn't matter that she was still angry at him for turning himself in to the Alliance. It didn't matter that they were at war with the Reapers and probably going to die. The only thing that mattered was that what they had had together was still there … and that somewhere along the line she had tattooed her name on him, imprinted it deep within his bones and tissue.


	9. Namesake

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

Jacob grinned, his expression an odd mixture of shyness and pride. "Brynn is—she's … Well, we're going to have a baby, Commander. I'm going to be a father. And I'll be a damned sight better one than my father ever was," he added, his voice hardening.

"I don't doubt that you will," Shepard assured him. He was happy enough for Jacob, although they had never been particularly close. Still, Jacob's father had been a piece of work, and it was good that he was going to get a chance to fix the mistakes of the past by devoting himself to a different kind of fatherhood.

"She wants to name it after you."

Shepard thought of that, interested in the idea. Given that he had earned his own name under such unusual circumstances, he thought maybe he liked the idea of another baby being given it with meaning attached. "Aaron Taylor?"

"Aaron?" Jacob looked confused, and then his face cleared. "Oh, no—she was thinking Shepard."

"Shepard Taylor?" That sounded odd.

"Yeah, I'm hoping to talk her out of it. Hope you don't mind. I was thinking more along the lines of Jacob, Junior."

"Of course. That makes sense." They stood looking at one another awkwardly until Shepard decided there really wasn't much else to say. He stuck out his hand. "Well, good luck, Jacob. Keep me posted."

"Will do. I'd say the same, but the whole galaxy's going to know what you're up to." Squeezing Shepard's hand tightly, he added, "Make us proud."

"I'll do my best."

Shepard got on the elevator and headed down to the Presidium. One of the kiosks had in some new equipment and were offering him a discount, so he had promised to come check out their stocks. On his way down the hall he passed a salarian chatting to someone through a comm link. He had his back to Shepard, who didn't immediately recognize him. But his voice carried. He was speaking to someone about a successful clutch.

The voice was familiar to Shepard—or maybe it was just that all salarians sounded like Mordin to him these days—and he stopped to look at the salarian's face. Shepard remembered him now; he had found a set of heating unit stabilizers for the salarian so that his colony could fertilize their egg clutches.

He didn't want to disturb the salarian, who was intent on his conversation, so he didn't say anything to him, but it was nice to know that something he had done had worked out well, that little salarian babies would live because of him.

The salarian said, "Yes, my sister said she wanted to name the firstborn after the person who helped us."

Shepard held back a bark of laughter with some difficulty. To think of a salarian named Shepard. Of course, he didn't know enough about salarian naming practices to know how that would work, practically speaking. But on top of Jacob's girlfriend having the same impulse, it was food for thought.

He wasn't a fool, or completely oblivious—he knew there had been little Shepards of all species since as far back as Torfan. He had never given it much thought before; what other people named their children was really none of his business. Now it occurred to him that no one knew Shepard wasn't his real name. It had never come up. On his official Alliance intake paperwork, he'd left his parents' names blank and given Rachel and Doug's names as next of kin. To the best of his knowledge, no one was aware that he had started off life as a nameless street rat.

How would it be different if they knew? Would they look at him as if he didn't belong in the Alliance uniform? Would people still want to give their children his name if they were aware of how little meaning it had?

Shepard leaned against a railing, looking out over the lake, thinking about it. It occurred to him, now that he took the time to stand and consider, that he rather liked the idea of little namesakes, a legacy to leave behind that symbolized a new start. Because, really, what had he left behind when he died before? Besides a few friends—and maybe that was enough, maybe it was more than everyone got—and a reputation for killing a lot of things, not a hell of a lot. And if he died today? Not all that much more. His reputation was already murky. Between the whitewashing of the battle of the Citadel, his work with Cerberus, the secrecy behind everything he had done … The world would remember Commander Shepard, but they'd have questions. True, he had an apartment, now, which he'd never had before, belongings, but most of those were more truly Anderson's than his. On the other hand, he had Jack, and he had to think that her life would be better after he was gone than it would have been if she had never met him, never been with him.

After this war, he thought, if he could really take down the Reapers, if the galaxy could learn to get along without him saving it all the time … maybe he'd convince Jack to actually let him take her back to Earth, finally introduce her to Doug and Rachel, assuming they'd survived, possibly even go back to Tulsa and take a stab at figuring out where he came from. And then, if the time was right, maybe he'd even sound her out about the possibility of making a little Shepard of their own.


	10. Normal

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

Shepard looked around the apartment. His apartment. It was still a lot to wrap his head around—and not just because Anderson's taste was far too grand for him. He felt like he was living in a museum, afraid to put a bottle of beer down and destroy the pristine cleanliness everywhere. The place was well-maintained, he'd give Anderson that, and had to be worth a fortune. That Aaron Shepard himself was also worth a fortune, at this point, was beside the point—most of Shepard's savings were going toward keeping the _Normandy_ running and financing his personal part of the war. The Alliance tried, but it had ten places to put every credit. And what was Shepard going to use his money for, anyway?

A buzz on the monitor by the door recalled him to the moment, and he hit the button to wake the screen, smiling at the two men who appeared on it, unsurprisingly in the midst of a friendly argument.

"You two are going to settle whatever this is on the way up, right?"

Steve Cortez flashed his brilliant smile. "You bet, Commander. Mr. Vega here was just about to apologize for being late."

"Is it my fault somebody forgot to pick up the cerveza?"

"Since that someone was you, yes."

Vega chuckled. "Busted. Sorry, Commander."

"Come on up, guys."

They reminded Shepard of his early days in the Alliance, the camaraderie, the way everyone was the same, despite their differences. He missed that, sometimes, and wondered what things might have been like if Anderson had never seen something in him and plucked him from the ranks for the N7 program.

Shepard grimaced. He'd probably be dead, several times over, like so many of the guys he'd started out with were.

The apartment door slid open, and Vega and Cortez walked in. Cortez did a double take, and Vega turned around, walking backward, staring up at the high ceilings. He gave a low whistle. "Damn, Commander, you sure do know how to live."

"Not me. Anderson. If I'd picked out the place it'd be … a lot smaller." It was a lame finish, but Shepard felt strange sharing personal details about his style with these guys. Or anyone, really. For that matter, he'd never really had a place of his own to develop a style.

Vega eyed him, from the scuffed boots to the battered vest. "Got it."

That Vega thought the clothes were a pose, Shepard knew perfectly well. But Vega didn't know how Shepard had grown up; no one did. Not even Jack, although he'd told her some. Suddenly, he thought maybe he should say something. After all, he knew about Cortez's husband, lost on Ferris Fields; he knew about Vega's absentee father. Maybe it was time they knew about him, too. "The way I grew up, you never owned more than you could carry. Hard to fit this place in a duffel bag."

"I'd be tempted to try," Vega said, grinning. He took one of the beers Steve was handing out. "So when's the game?"

"About to start."

"Man, this should be some intense biotiball." Cortez shook his head. "Seattle Sorcerors vs. Usaru Maestros. Thanks for having us up, Commander."

"My pleasure." Shepard led the way to the … well, he wasn't sure what to call it. Den? TV room? He'd read those terms, but never spent enough time in houses to get familiar with what they represented. He'd never had some guys over to watch the game, either, although he'd read about that, too.

"Man, Derek Rogers and the Sorcerors have been tearing it up!" Cortez said with enthusiasm, sinking onto the couch.

"Esteban, you are completely loco. The Maestros don't lose! Have you seen Tyra T'Sanis play? The woman is blue lightning." Vega straddled the arm of the other couch, taking a long pull off his beer.

Cortez laughed, watching the screen as the commentators appeared, talking up the game as it was about to begin. "Mr. Vega, we all know your love of the asari team has more to do with how they look than how they play."

"I can appreciate both! You telling me you don't got the hots for some of the Sorcerors?"

"Guilty as charged," Cortez admitted.

They both turned to look at Shepard. "What? I don't have the hots for any of the Sorcerors. Or the Maestros, either," he added hastily, thinking that rumors of his previous fling with Liara might still be circulating.

"Yeah, Joker showed us pictures of your girl. Damn, Shepard, how'd you get so lucky?"

"Right place at all the wrong times." Shepard grinned, drinking his beer and thinking of Jack. They were trying to coordinate visits to the Citadel, but it was proving hard to do. He wondered what she would think of this place. Probably that it was too much, just like he did, he thought fondly.

"So, who are you backing?" Cortez asked him.

That was a tough one. He'd never really followed biotiball; never enough time, it seemed. He shrugged. "How do you bet against a team that's been playing since before we were born?"

"Now, that's what I'm talkin' about!" Vega reached out a hand, and Shepard high-fived him, like he did it every day. "Listen up, Esteban. Shepard's preaching the wisdom."

Cortez shook his head. "You're both out of your minds. The Sorcerors are way too hungry to lose this one."

On the screen, the game started. Cortez was on the edge of his seat, cheering, Vega pacing back and forth behind the couches. As the game went on, their enthusiasm was infectious, and Aaron caught himself leaning forward tensely as the Maestros went in for a point, and cheering as loudly as Vega when they made one.

They commiserated with each other over more beers and a delivery of pizza and wings when the game was over, pelting Cortez with the remnants of the wings when he got too cocky about the Sorcerors' win.

Finally, the other two left, heading back to the ship, and Shepard was left with the mess—the pizza box with the last half-eaten piece, the wing bones and beer bottles strewn across the floor and cluttering the table. And he smiled, because for the first time in possibly his entire life, he felt like a normal guy.


	11. Hers

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

By the time he and Jack managed to be on the Citadel at the same time again, Shepard had spent enough time in the apartment to be comfortable there—but she clearly found it all a bit too much. Until the _Normandy_ , Jack had never had anything that belonged to her besides her own body. Now she had her work, she had her kids … but still no home, nothing permanent, nothing she could come back to. Except for him. And he intended to be permanent. At least, as much as he could intend anything with the Reapers still out there.

"Hey. None of that."

"None of what?"

"That brooding look. You're stuck in your head again, still fighting the war."

"Some days it seems like that's all there ever will be, fighting the war. And then the next war, and the one after that."

Jack shook her head and grabbed his hand, tugging him toward the bedroom.

"What are you doing?" As if he didn't know.

But apparently he didn't, because she cast him a look over her shoulder that was half sparkling with intent and half nervous, which meant there was more to her plan than just sex. "It's a surprise," she told him.

"I like surprises." He didn't. Too often surprise came with death, and destruction, and chaos. But Jack had been a surprise, too, every time, and he liked Jack, so he'd be happy to go along with whatever was in her mind.

She stopped in the middle of the room. "That's what I like to hear. Get undressed, and lie down."

Aaron raised an eyebrow. "I like this more and more." He did as he was told, stripping to his briefs and stretching out across the bed on his stomach. He was a little surprised that Jack was still fully dressed as she straddled his back, a little more surprised when he heard a buzzing sound, and even more surprised when suddenly something was attacking his shoulder, like an insect with sharp jaws biting him over and over. "What the hell?"

"Don't move, Shepard." She smacked his other shoulder. "You'll mess it up."

"You're giving me a tattoo?" He wanted to crane his neck, even though it would be impossible to see from this angle, but he also didn't want her to hit him again—and he didn't want to mess up her artwork. So he held still, even though the initially bearable pain was stinging more and more as she kept going. Most soldiers had tattoos, but he had never been tempted. Never felt strongly enough about anyone or anything to want to take the time or make the effort. "Will this take a while?"

"It will if you don't shut up and stop squirming," she said almost absently, concentrating on her work.

So he did as he was told, clenching his teeth as the process seemed to go on and on and on.

At last she paused, looking over her handiwork. "This is a lot easier than doing my own."

"I bet. Have you ever done one for anybody else?"

The response came softly, almost under her breath. "Nobody else ever mattered enough."

Aaron fought the impulse to turn over and hold her, knowing she wouldn't accept the gesture. Instead he began to wonder what kind of a design Jack had marked him with. Knowing her it could be … well, it could be anything, really. "You haven't told me what I'm getting."

She was silent for a few moments, doing what felt like some final touch-up work. At last she climbed off him, activating her omni-tool. "You're getting this. Hope you like it, 'cause it's too late now."

On the screen in front of him he suddenly saw the image of his own back, the skin reddened around the fresh tattoo—a skull inside a half circle.

"It's nice." It was good work, not that he would have expected any less, given the quality of her own tattooos.

"Nice?" Jack snapped. "It's not about nice."

Aaron sat up, turning to look at her. There was a fierceness in her face, and under that a fear that he hadn't seen since the night before they went through the Omega 4 relay. "What's going on?"

"I—" She scowled. "Rodriguez, the dumbass. We were on Palaven, and I had to pull her out from under a pile of husks. If I—" Jack stopped, pulling herself together visibly. "If I hadn't recognized her ugly fucking boot, I wouldn't have seen her. She'd have died under there." A tear gathered in the corner of her eye, rolling slowly down her cheek. "If you're—if you're ever hurt, barely breathing, lying under a pile of rubble at the ass end of this neverending fucking war, you're gonna have—someone's gonna know you belong to someone."

She was nearly breaking down, her voice cracking on the words, and Aaron reached out, pulling her close against him, holding her while she fought her tears, her face pressed against his chest. "You worry too much," he said softly.

"You don't worry enough."

"We're going to make it. Both of us."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Shepard."

"Okay. Okay." He rested his cheek against the top of her head. "Jack, I lo—"

"No! Not those words. Not—not now. Maybe not ever. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I do." He pulled back so he could look down at her beautiful face. With his thumb, he rubbed a streak of mascara off her cheek. "I'm glad you marked me. Anywhere in the galaxy, anywhere I go, they'll know I'm yours."

"Damn right you are." Jack pulled his head down to hers, kissing him. "And don't you ever fucking forget it."

He wanted to tell her he never would, but as she kept kissing him, words seemed increasingly unnecessary.


	12. Commander

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

He had no memory of how he'd gotten off Thessia. To Shepard, it seemed that he went from watching in dumbfounded, stunned agony as Reaper after Reaper landed moments after he had thought the battle half-won to staggering off the shuttle and looking around at the familiarity of the cargo bay as though he had never seen it before.

"Commander. Commander."

The voice was repeating the word gently but insistently, but somehow Shepard couldn't process it. What did it mean? Who was it? It only slowly dawned through the hazy fog that filled his head that the voice was trying to speak to him. He looked over and blinked at the face of the uniformed person next to him. Traynor. Yes. "What is it?"

"The asari Councilor is trying to call you. She's been trying to call since they lost contact with— Well, for quite some time now."

Councilor. Asari. Thessia.

His mind shied away from the words.

"Commander, would you like me to speak to her?"

"No, I'll do it." Those words were automatic. He had said them so often, to so many people. He wasn't even sure what he had promised to do this time, but he was going to do it, because that was how it went. Other people needed things done, and he did them. And it worked. Every time. Except today, because …

Councilor. Asari. Thessia.

No.

Traynor said, "Okay, Commander." But she didn't look as though it was okay. She looked as though he didn't know what he was saying. Maybe she was right.

She punched the buttons for the elevator, made sure he got on, and made sure he got off again. He assumed it was the right place, but the effort of thinking about it was too much.

He stood blinking in the middle of the busy room. He knew it was familiar to him, but he couldn't seem to remember quite what everything was called. He followed Traynor through some doors. "Here's where I leave you, Commander," she said. "You'll be all right from here?"

"Fine," he assured her. That, too, was an automatic word. He'd been assuring people that he was fine for a long time. He didn't know how not to be fine, even if he wasn't entirely sure what fine meant.

Two other soldiers whose names he couldn't bring to mind ushered him through that room and on into the next one. He followed that into an inner room where a small button was lit up and buzzing insistently. It should stop, he thought vaguely. Was someone going to stop it?

He pressed his arm against the wall and leaned his forehead against it and closed his eyes, seeing Reapers and destruction—but was it Thessia or was it somewhere else? He searched his mind for names. Palaven. Tuchanka. … Earth. There had been so many places.

The button was still buzzing behind him. He wished it would stop.

"Commander?"

That word again. He opened his eyes and looked at the person speaking. It was another woman in uniform, one whose name he wasn't sure he knew.

"Commander?"

"What's your name?" he said to her.

"Rabinowitz, sir."

"Are you sure?"

She was looking at him strangely. "Sir?"

"Nothing. What can I do for you, Rabinowitz?"

"Commander, it's the asari Councilor. She's … very insistent. Can't you hear her calling?"

Frowning, he looked around at the buzzer. "That's the asari Councilor?"

"She's calling, yes. Can you— Do you want me to answer it?"

Did he? He didn't know. Maybe.

"Commander?" Rabinowitz said again, more insistently, and he realized he had closed his eyes again. "Commander!"

He blinked, the haze beginning to clear. Commander. That was him. They called him that because he was in command, because … it was his responsibility.

Like a flood, it all hit him. The Crucible, the Catalyst, Cerberus, Kai Leng … Thessia. Liara, whose heart had broken almost audibly as she watched the destruction of her home. Those things were on him. They were his fault, because he hadn't been strong enough, smart enough, fast enough. He had failed. He was conscious of a wave of nearly unbearable weariness, just as had come over him as he climbed hand over hand up the debris of the temple, desperate to reach Kai Leng before he disappeared with the information they needed about the Catalyst. That he had eventually made it to the top he knew, but he had no memory of it, no idea how he had forced his exhausted muscles to keep working.

But there was no time for weariness now. He was in charge; he had created this, brought them all this far only to fail at the last minute. He was the one who would have to find a way to fix it, and that would start with confessing to the asari Councilor that he had lost her homeworld, as well as the last hope to save it and everything else.

"Yes," he said to Rabinowitz now. "Yes, I'll take care of it." That was what he did; he took care of things.

Relief flooded her Rabinowitz's face and she left the room, going back to her duties. Left alone, Shepard turned and hit the button, taking a deep breath before the image of the asari Councilor appeared in front of him. "Councilor? It's Commander Shepard. I'm afraid … I'm afraid I've got some very bad news."


	13. Friend

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

After he finished the call with the asari Councilor, Shepard walked through the _Normandy_ 's bridge to the cockpit. It was nearly silent; even those who had to talk to one another in the course of their duties were doing so in very hushed, muted tones. And everyone he passed either gave him a quick glance of apprehension or avoided making eye contact. He couldn't tell if this was a response to the loss of Thessia to the Reapers or to the way he had acted when he returned to the ship from the planet. Either way, nothing about the unusual silence or the heightened tension being caused by his presence was doing his rising temper any good. What were they staring at? Had they never lost before? Or was it that they had thought he couldn't?

Anderson's pep talk—his swift kick in the rear end of Shepard's arrogance, really—had helped, had given Aaron the impetus he needed to keep going, to make sure that what happened on Thessia wasn't the end but just a bump in the road, but it wasn't enough to keep the black anger at Kai Leng and the Illusive Man from bubbling in Shepard's veins.

In the cockpit, Joker and EDI were talking quietly, but they stopped as soon as the door slid open. Joker spun his chair around, looking up at Shepard from under the rim of his ever-present ballcap. "Thessia," he said. "Man. I guess the asari are wishing they had fewer dancers and more commandos right about now."

In his mind's eye Shepard saw the Reapers descending, heard the screams of the valiant asari who had been using every last ounce of determination they possessed trying to defend their homeworld, and he saw red.

Joker must have seen the rage rising in him, because the smile on his face faded. "Too soon?"

"Damn right it is! You're a hell of a pilot, Joker, and I put up with a lot because of that, but we are in the middle of a war! People are dying out there."

"Yeah. I get that. I have people, too, Shepard. You never asked, so you don't know that, but I have a father and a sister out there on a shitty little planet that was still not small enough for the Reapers to overlook. I know we're at war, and I know what's at stake."

"Then why the jokes, at a time like this?" Aaron demanded.

Joker actually got to his feet, something he rarely did because of the pain associated with his Vrolik's Syndrome, and he looked Shepard square in the eye. "Because EDI says that according to your armor's metabolic scans, you're under more stress now than during the Skyllian Blitz. And the last time I had a briefing with Anderson, he told me to take care of you. The guy in charge of the defense of Earth, what there is of it, and he's worried about you! So hell, yeah, I'm gonna make jokes. So you have a tiny little chance of not exploding all over my leather chair, just when I've got it to fit me just right."

Shepard was touched by Joker's loyalty and Anderson's concern, but there was still too much anger boiling in his veins—most of it at himself, for having failed on Thessia, he had to admit—to let it show. "When I want a damn pep talk, I'll ask for one," he growled. "Understood?"

"Yes, Commander." Joker maneuvered himself carefully back into his seat and swung the chair around, his chilly formal response louder in the small cockpit than if he had shouted.

"Shepard," EDI piped up, "perhaps a stirring rendition of 'La Marseillaise'?"

"Not now, EDI." He stalked out of the cockpit.

Garrus was waiting for him, leaning back against a bank of monitors, arms crossed over his chest. "You were a little hard on Joker, don't you think?"

"He asked for it. It's no time for a joke."

"It always is, for him. It's in the name."

Shepard glared at him. "Are you defending his flippancy? Do you know what just happened out there?"

"Yes. I do. I've seen it before, remember? And I know that I just advised the Primarch to cease all offensive operations against the Reapers."

"A full retreat?" Shepard's jaw dropped.

Garrus sighed. "The only way to save Palaven now—or Earth, or Thessia, or any of the worlds under Reaper control—is to hold our ships back for the Crucible."

"Yeah. It is. But in the meantime—"

"A lot of people die."

"All the more reason to—"

"To what, Shepard?" Garrus asked. "To lose what makes our races worth fighting for, the humor and the art and the hearts of our people, by insisting on dour faces and anger at all times?"

"It's not that simple!"

"Look, I get it. This is Sovereign a thousandfold. But we won then … and we'll win now."

"I wish I had your confidence."

Garrus chuckled. "I wish I did, too. I'm just faking it to impress you."

Aaron managed a small quirk of the lips. "Consider me impressed."

While Garrus went into the cockpit to cheer up Joker, Shepard left the bridge, reaching for the button that would take him up to his quarters, but he didn't want to be alone. Not right now, not with the defeat by Kai Leng still fresh in his mind. So he went down to engineering and knocked on Javik's door. The Prothean was the only person he could think of who might understand.

"So," Javik said, without turning from the basin of water he kept in his room, staring down into its depths, "you have lost the asari home planet."

The bluntness stung, but after all, it was what Aaron had come for. "Yes."

"In my cycle, we lost many planets. You get used to it."

"That was fifty thousand years ago! We had a chance to stop this now, today, and I blew it!"

Javik turned, all four eyes glaring at Shepard. "For me, our losses were only yesterday. Our empire spanned the galaxy! Now it is only a myth."

Aaron felt the reality of the Prothean's words through the link they shared, as if he had lived through the extinction himself, and he shuddered. "I know," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

But Javik shook his head impatiently. "Do not be sorry, Shepard. That is not the task I call you to." He put his hands on Aaron's shoulders. "I suffered many defeats in the last war, but I am still here fighting in this one, looking for victory. Let this loss be the fuel that powers you, as mine have been for me."

"I … don't know if I can. Not this time. It was within my grasp! I nearly had everything we needed to destroy the Reapers once and for all, and I—"

The Prothean's hands tightened on his shoulders. "Your future is still out there. Your people can say something mine could not: There will be a tomorrow."

"Only if we win."

"No one else has ever made it this far."

Standing there looking into the Prothean's eyes, Aaron knew it was true—but he also knew how tired he was, how desperately weary and ready to stop fighting.

"You must not give in to that feeling," Javik said urgently. "It is what the Reapers trade on, the idea that their force is so overwhelming it is futile to fight. But you have proved them wrong, time and again. You can do it once more. You must."

Shepard tried to find the strength from somewhere deep inside himself; tried and failed. He shook his head.

"I am with you," Javik told him. "I, and the asari, and the turian, and the quarian, and all the humans aboard this ship. We are with you, and we will not leave you until we are victorious. You do not have to do this alone, my friend."

It was the first time the Prothean had used the word—possibly the first time he had ever addressed it to anyone not of his own race. Aaron felt his friend's strength flowing through him, felt the remembered warmth of Garrus's support, and Joker and Anderson and EDI's concern, the support of the others here, and something shifted, a band of grief compressing his chest eased, and he could breathe, and think, and plan again.

He grasped Javik's arms. "Thank you."

"Any time."


	14. Survivor

_One of the things I like about the Jack romance is that she actually is (or can be) on the ground in London. I had fun with that here. I may be a bit out of canon here, but this is how it worked in my head. Thanks very much for reading, all!_

* * *

The first sensation was pain. Actually, that was about the first thousand sensations. It took a long while to reach enough consciousness that Shepard could be aware that he was himself, and that he was feeling pain. Only when that happened could he start considering where the pain was.

That was no help. The pain was everywhere. So much of it that he retreated into the blackness of unconsciousness to get away from it.

When he came to again, his head had cleared somewhat—enough to notice that he could see nothing. Was he blind, or was he in darkness? He tried to move a hand, to wave his fingers in front of his face, but his hands refused to move. Trapped, it felt like.

He stopped and considered that, tensing and releasing his muscles experimentally. Yes, he was definitely trapped. Under what?

London, he thought at last, remembering. He was trapped under London. The Crucible had blasted; he had watched the Reapers falling from the sky, screaming toward Earth, as the beam struck them; and he had rejoiced, even in his weariness and his certainty that he was about to die. He remembered nothing after that.

"You did it again, Shepard," he said to himself. Or he thought he did, but he heard nothing. Had he not actually spoken, or was he deaf, as well as blind? He strained to hear anything else, but there was nothing. He could be lying in a tomb, for all he knew, or in some kind of hell, trapped here for all eternity, unable to die. Wouldn't that be a kick in the teeth?

It would. It would be so much of a kick that his consciousness deserted him again to avoid thinking about it.

When it returned, it was to the blissful relief of hearing something—scraping sounds, tapping and scrabbling, like … rats. Great. Trapped under half of London and about to be eaten alive by rats. The exalted end of the storied career of Commander Aaron Shepard. From street rat to street rat, he thought, and squashed the temptation to giggle.

The scrapings were getting louder, though, as he lay here, as if they were coming closer. And now he could hear voices. There were people out there! He tried to speak, but nothing seemed to come from him. He realized that whatever lay across his back was making it hard to breathe as well as to speak, and decided to save his breath.

He strained to make out the sounds. What were they saying? Who were they? The _Normandy_ —had they gotten away in time? Jack—was she safe, out there with her students? Wrex and Grunt were out there somewhere, too, although he couldn't imagine anything that could take out those two stubborn krogan.

One voice was higher than the others, louder, more adamant. Whoever it was, they were pissed. He smiled, thinking of Jack. She had told him not to get killed, because when it was all over she intended to get laid. He had heard the words she couldn't say beneath the demand, and said "I love you", for the first time he could remember saying those words. He might get the chance to say them again now, he thought, and with that in mind, drifted off again into the darkness.

It was a voice like Jack's that he heard some time later, bringing him back to himself. "Don't you fucking tell me to stand down! You stand down. You're not in charge of me."

"Ma'am, it's not safe."

" _I'm_ not safe."

There was a pause, while slowly the realization seeped into Shepard's mind that it really was her voice. Jack was out there. She was alive, and he was alive, and she was out there, somewhere close by, looking for him. At least, he assumed she was looking for him. He hoped she'd find him. Lying here in the darkness was wearing on him. He wanted to see light, preferably on Jack's beautiful face.

The second voice spoke again, less confidently now. Jack was right; she really wasn't safe. And the owner of the second voice sounded like he was coming to understand that. "But … you can't be in here. The whole place might collapse." The voice belonged to somone young, Shepard thought. And human. And nervous. Well, Jack was pretty scary. Who wouldn't be nervous?

"Don't tell me what to do!" she snapped back. "I'm going in there. Try to stop me if you want."

More scraping sounds, and a few crashes like debris being thrown off a pile and crashing into a wall, proved that Second Voice hadn't tried. Smart man.

The crashing sounds continued, along with some creaking and groaning from whatever lay on top of Shepard. Was Jack using her biotics to move debris? That sounded like what she would do. Shepard wished he could help her, but all that came out when he called was a hoarse croak, and he couldn't move at all. That ought to worry him, he thought.

But just then a beam of light shafted through somewhere in the edge of his vision, the first thing he had truly seen since he woke up, and the joy of still being able to see trumped the worry over whether he could move. More voices had come, most of them male, most of them trying to tell Jack what to do. Shepard lay there watching the dust move through the beam of light and listening to Jack argue with a well-meaning pack of men who thought they could stop her from doing just what she wanted. Shepard could have told them that was an effort doomed to failure, but he still couldn't quite manage to speak, and Jack seemed to be doing just fine without his help.

"Look here, you assholes," she said. "That is Commander Shepard in there—Commander fucking Shepard!—and I'm going to get him out."

There was a pause, and then an uncomfortable voice said, "Ma'am, Commander Shepard is dead."

"Call me ma'am one more time. Go ahead."

The faceless voice sensibly opted not to do so.

"Good. Now—somewhere in that rubble Commander Shepard is alive. I know it. And I'm going in there after him, and you don't have a chance in hell of stopping me. And if you try, I will kill you. I won't want to, because enough people have died today, but I'll do it."

Another silence. A new voice now, this one less wearied and more enthusiastic than the previous ones, as if Jack's determination was giving the rest of them hope. "You're going after Commander Shepard? He's alive?"

"Damn right he is."

"I'll help. Let me get some new friends of mine. Neat guys. Weird-looking. Fight like a beast, though."

Then, after a few minutes, to Shepard's tremendous relief, he heard another familiar voice, trusted and dependable. "What's going on in here? You need a krogan? Hell, what am I saying? You people always need a krogan."

"Grunt! Get in here and help me move this stuff."

"Jack! Shepard's in here?"

"I think so. He—" Her voice caught in a sob, the first time it had wavered. "He has to be in here, Grunt. He has to be."

"Then we'll find him." The krogan's voice was surprisingly gentle.

More movings now. Shepard could feel things, the rubble shifting on top of him. Occasionally that brought relief, occasionally more pain. Whatever was on top of his torso didn't move, so his breathing and voice were still compromised. And, even more concerningly, he was aware that he couldn't feel his legs. Shit.

"Jack!" It was Grunt's voice, hoarse with disbelief. "I think there's … I think there's something here."

"Let me see it. Move, you big reptile."

She was so near. He couldn't even turn his head, and all that came out when he tried to call her name was a wheeze.

Then— "Oh, my god." Her fingers were on his back, tracing the tattoo she had given him, exposed by the cracks and tears in his hardsuit. "It is him. It's Shepard. He's warm!" she called back loudly to Grunt. "He's alive!"

Shepard groaned as best he could, and this time she heard him.

"Shepard? Shepard, I'm here. I'm not leaving you."

Between her biotics and Grunt's brute strength, they moved the biggest piece of debris, and Shepard was finally able to shift an arm, the movement a blissful relief. A familiar hand gripped his, and then she was on the other side of him, the side formerly blocked by the debris, lying down next to him, holding his hand in hers. She was so beautiful, even scratched and banged up as she was.

"Hey," he managed, his voice a hoarse croak.

"Hey, yourself. What'd I tell you about scaring me like that?"

"Sorry. Goes along with saving the galaxy, I guess."

"Well, next time, put me ahead of the galaxy, will you?"

"It's a promise. From now on, Jack first, galaxy … not first." He blinked, the pain clouding his vision. "Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"I can't feel my legs. I think … I think it's because they used … the child said I was partly synethetic."

"What child?"

He had forgotten she didn't know what had happened. It seemed too tiring to try to explain.

"Never mind, Aaron. We'll get you to a hospital, get you fixed."

He squeezed her hand. "Good. Because after this, I'm getting laid."

Jack smiled. "I love you, too."


End file.
